Stories from the UN Archive: Cuba’s longest ‘brief’ speech at UN

Answer: 269 minutes

“Although we have been given the reputation of speaking at great length, the Assembly need not worry,” Fidel Castro of Cuba said at the outset. “We shall do our best to be brief.”

While the General Assembly requests that delegates limit their addresses to 15 minutes, on 26 September 1960, he remained at the rostrum for more than four hours.

Delivered just one year after the Cuban Revolution that led to the overthrow of the United States-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, Mr. Castro used his time at the podium to criticize US imperialism and its interference in Latin American affairs.

Watch UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive episode on Mr. Castro’s speech here, part of our series showcasing epic moments across UN history, cultivated from the UN Audiovisual Library’s 49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings.

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